One of my all time favourite books, Trent Dalton is a fiction writing genius! I loved loved loved Boy Swallows Universe also - this one is very different in it's style but just as excellently written. I'll have to keep my eyes peeled for more!!!!

I would rate this book 3.5 out 5 stars.

While this didn't grab me in quite the same way as Boy Swallows Universe (which I absolutely adored), Trent Dalton's writing is just as beautiful - so lyrical and descriptive of the Australian landscape.

Trent Dalton has such a way of depicting inherited trauma and people living on the fringes of society. I did find that some of the side characters felt a little bit like caricatures, particularly Greta and Long Coat Bob.

I will definitely continue to check out future releases from Trent Dalton.

3.5★
“Bonnie Russell, 1865–1923. Grey limestone. Apex top contouring. An epitaph line that Molly hopes every night in her sleep will turn out to be true: ‘Death is only a wall between two gardens.’ Molly standing in one garden on one side of that wall, here in the Northern Territory, her garden filled with ironwood trees and fern-leaved grevilleas with orange flowers the colour of fire; her mother, Violet, on the other side of that wall, standing among roses, red and pink roses and nothing else. She’s smiling. She’s waiting.”

What a strange story. Molly Hook, gravediggers’ daughter. Both parents and her uncle dig graves, and at 11, she has her own shovel, Bert, her only friend. He is called Bert, because he has a serrated edge like the crooked teeth of a local shopkeeper.

“Bert the shovel has helped dig twenty-six graves for her so far this year, her first year digging graves with her mother and father and uncle. Bert has killed a black whipsnake for her.

Molly’s mother, Violet, says Bert is Molly’s second best friend. Molly’s mother says her first best friend is the sky. Because the sky is every girl’s best friend. There are things the sky will tell a girl about herself that a friend could never tell her. Molly’s mother says the sky is watching over Molly for a reason. Every lesson she will ever need to learn about herself is waiting up there in that sky, and all she has to do is look up.”

Molly adores her mother, but Violet dies young, leaving Molly only her grandfather’s copper pan for finding gold. The pan has poetic clues engraved around the edges, and Molly thinks they are a treasure map to the gold that was stolen and put a curse on her family. She needs to find it and return it.

Her father and uncle, Horace and Aubrey Hook, are obsessed with finding gold, especially Aubrey, and the book eventually takes them through parts of Australia’s Northern Territory. But before then, Molly discovers Uncle Aubrey is digging up graves and stealing rings and jewels and anything of value. She reads the engravings and poems on the headstones and begins writing her own.

“She etched the poem into the back of a nameless gravestone deep in the south-western corner of Hollow Wood. She used all the creatures she sees in the cemetery to represent things inside her uncle that can’t be seen from outside. She wrote it out of anger, like all her best poems.

The bird said he dug for the bread
The scorpion said he dug for treasure
The worm said he dug for the dead
The snake said he dug for pleasure


It was a poem about how Molly believed it wasn’t the precious metal that her uncle was hoping to find in all these graves, it was the glowing – the brief flash of new light the dug-up gold brought into his world. There was a kind of love in it, she thought. A romance, maybe. Lust, surely. Not the picture-theatre kind, but a darker kind that dwells in shadows and never sleeps. The Edgar Allan Poe kind.”

Uncle Aubrey is to be avoided. Bad guy.

Molly is fixated on graves, dying, epitaphs and clues. The conceit the author uses to identify her shovel as her only friend is interesting the first time or two but seems overdone as the story progresses. She talks to the sky and likes to think the sky is advising her, but she seems to know she's imagining that, I think.

“The gravedigger girl and Bert the shovel standing alone and silent before Tom Berry’s grave, with the sun in the middle of the sky. Molly reads her grandfather’s epitaph. Her eyes are drawn to the same sentence they’re always drawn to.”

And then, the bombs. The Japanese bombed the bejeezus out of Darwin in WW2, and that leads to a second storyline with a Japanese pilot, pining for his wife and not wanting to hurt the people on the ground. He’d rather fly his plane into a mountain and end it all, but he’s over flat country.

Adding Yukio and a cabaret performer and some leprous miners to a quest story that wanders through the Litchfield area south of Darwin makes a very odd tale indeed, and I have to say I never warmed to any of the characters. Some of the descriptive writing makes up for that, so I began skimming the slow parts rather than giving up entirely, and I’m glad I read it.

Overall, it wasn’t for me, but I know it will have fans, and I thank NetGalley and HarperCollins Australia for the preview copy from which I’ve quoted.

There is something about Trent Dalton's writing that I love, his short sentences, slightly disjointed sometimes stuttery ways should irritate me, but they really don't. I find them engaging, and gripping. I can't wait to read the next page.

This is Molly Hook's book, she is gutsy and brave and has the most unusual sidekick you can imagine. A shovel called Bert. Look, it all sounds so silly but it just works. Molly is the gravedigger's daughter, and the daughter of a mother who was a dreamer, literature lover, and disappointed woman, a woman whose potential was never realised. Molly has grown up in abject poverty, she is a little girl who is used to making do, used to dealing with a drunken father and an abusive uncle, and she takes solace in poetry and the books her mother owned. She is used to being alone. But Molly's uncle has a girlfriend who is a delight, Greta is a beautiful drunk with a bad reputation but a heart of gold. She is an actress in a town that doesn't appreciate her talents with an abusive boyfriend who she can't leave behind. And Greta loves Molly.

When Darwin is bombed by the Japanese, Molly and Greta set off together to set about reversing a curse put on Molly's family. At the same time, a Japanese pilot, crashes and lands in their path and thus a threesome of travelers become adventurers, questers and friends.

This book takes a bit of work to get stuck into, but once you are in these characters will sweep you away. This is a weird kind of magical realism. Just suspend your disbelief and get stuck in and you'll find a story that is not like any other. You'll fall for Molly from page one, you'll despise her relatives and come to understand the value of unexpected consequences in her life. This is a gem of a book. What the heck is Trent Dalton bringing us next? I can't wait to see. These first two have been amazing, unusual, and moving. I'm totally there for anything he brings me now.

Thanks so much to Netgalley and the publisher for giving me access to this book. I loved it.

I absolutely adored this book. A coworker described it to me as fable-like, and I think that sums it up perfectly. It is a well paced story, with many shifts in the story. It flows so well, and you are invested in Molly and Greta, and other peripheral characters. I think I enjoyed it more than “Boy Swallows Universe”.

Trent Dalton has written another marvellous book full of wonderful characters, all encased by a gorgeous cover bursting with colour. His writing is unrestrained and glorious, full of imagination, magic and wonder at the beauty of the world. In his main character, twelve year old Molly Hook, a motherless daughter of a gravedigger, he brings us another memorable character. A girl who loves poetry, talks to the sky and is full of grittiness and determination with a quest to right the wrong imposed on her family.

Set in 1942 in Darwin, as women and children are evacuated and the city prepares for the possibility of war on Australian soil. But with no such care taken of Molly by her drunken father and his violent brother, she's left to her own devices to plan a daring journey into the heart of the Northern Territory's wetlands, following the words of a poem left to her by her mother. Accompanied by her trusty gravedigger's shovel, Bert, and Greta, a beautiful would-be actress, they see wondrous sights, befriend a Japanese fighter pilot and meet outback characters, both good and evil. There are dark times as well as unspeakable beauty and over all is Molly's shimmering sky that she trusts to deliver gifts when she most needs them. There is so much packed into this book from the Darwin of the 1940s full of working men, pubs and Aussie slang to the bombing by the Japanese, to fugitive outback miners and the indigenous Australians caring for the land. Dalton has clearly done his research well and then given his imagination free rein. Definitely one of my top books of this year.

Molly Hook was a character for readers to love, to pour our sympathies upon and to cheer on.    When she was only seven her mother passed on some words of wisdom  before  saying goodbye and leaving this earthly world forever.   She implored Molly to live a grand and beautiful life.  To be poetic and to be graceful.    To be strong.   To know she is blessed regardless of what anyone else may say.    To know, and always remember, this place is hard but her heart is as hard as a rock, so hard it cannot be broken.   To know that whenever Molly needed her Mum she need only look to the sky.  

Aubrey Hook was a character to loathe and to feel angered about.      As Molly's uncle and nemesis, he was the antagonist of the piece and oh how I wished for his demise.    Fortunately Molly had taken her mothers words seriously because the treatment she was exposed to at the hands of this hateful,  hate filled and hate fuelled man required her to be strong at all times.    Sure he may have had a hard road himself but I felt no sympathy for this character who doled out psychological and physical mistreatment like any other uncle might dish out lollies and lavish love upon a neice.

These were not the only characters in Trent Daltons latest novel <b>All Our Shimmering Skies<b>.  The others were an unlikely bunch and I love how this author introduces characters who smash the stereotypes.    In an Australian book set in WWII, right at the time when Darwin was bombed by the Japanese, Dalton gives us a Japanese fighter pilot to adore.   In an Australia where  Aboriginal communities are often harmed by alcohol abuse  Dalton turns the tables.   The white Aussie men were the ones who succumbed to the demon drink whilst he delivered some indigenous characters to truly admire and respect. 

Delivering characters a reader can be emotion filled and
passionate about is one of the hallmarks of Trent Dalton's writing.   However this talented author has more than one string to his bow.    Not only does he bring great characters alive but he has an incredible gift for story telling.    This novel  is infused with a magical blend of fact and fantasy.   He incorporated a slice of Australia's WWII history (the little known story of the bombing of Darwin).  He blended Australian Aboriginal Dreamtime stories and literary references from some of the greats (Dickinson, Shakespeare & Walt Whitman to name just a few).    All this good stuff was mixed it with a chunk of adventure and a dollop of fantasy.    That he so expertly meshes all these elements into a cohesive story is admirable.

When it comes to creating a setting Dalton is an expert.    He used his mastery of words to paint a picture of the majestic scenery of the Northern Territory complete with the beauty and wonder of the wildlife.  And it's not just the sights and sounds of nature he managed to authentically reproduce but also the people.   Dalton incorporated a  bit of Strine, some Aussie rhyming slang and vernacular into his dialogue.

This is a unique story.   It's a 1950's adventure story.   It's a story of opposites.   There's light and darkness, goodness and evil, there's beauty but also ugliness.  There's sadness but there's hope.   There are curses and hearts of stone - definitely figuratively but quite possibly literally.   But there's also joy, unlikely friendships, beautiful life lessons and messages of love taken from the epitaphs on gravestones and from the pages of treasured books.
I don't relish suspending my disbelief which was at times necessary in this story, but I do relish the way Trent Dalton writes.   Without a shadow of doubt I will have my hands up for whatever he decides to write next.    He's that good.  

My sincere thanks to Trent Dalton,  Harper Collins Publishers and NetGalley for the opportunity of reading this digital ARC in exchange for an honest review which it was my pleasure to provide.

4.5 stars on GoodReads

This one fell short of my incredibly high expectations (I loved Boy Swallows Universe, and this book has been hyped alot!), yet Dalton's characterization and whimsical prose style continues to enchant me as a reader. I love the energy and fairytale aspect to Dalton's narrative style, and will continue to read future works by him.

We follow 12yr old Molly Hook, a motherless daughter of a gravedigger, and she is on an adventure to get to the bottom of a family curse in 1942 as Darwin is being bombed by the Japanese military. Molly is gifted an object that helps guide her quest, and along her journey to find the man who allegedly cursed her family, she meets Greta (a young actress) and a Japanese pilot who has crashed during the bombing.

I loved Molly as a character, her energy and vulnerability was immediately endearing, and her contemplation and thoughts driven by poetry was really well written. Where this started falling short for me was when Darwin was bombed and Molly's quest commenced--I found some of the specific events in the plot and the way characters were written jarring, and didn't always makes sense for me as a reader. I appreciated the author note at the end of the text speaking to the motivations behind aspects of the story and research undertaken, but for me I really (as part of the early reviews and marketing around this) was seeking own voices reviews particularly in regard to the way the Japanese pilot and the Indigenous characters were written.

(2.5 stars)

Trent Dalton's Boy Swallows Universe was one of my favourite books of 2018. Possibly my favourite book. I've long been a fan of Dalton's writing and though I avoid non-fiction, am generally riveted by his pieces in weekend newspapers. Articles or non-fiction essays about seemingly ordinary people and places, made extraordinary through his telling.

Dalton's second novel, All Our Shimmering Skies is quite different to his first. It's far more fantastic and mystical. It's deeper and requires more intellectual translation in many ways. As my taste is fairly prosaic and comprehension very literal I was probably less drawn to the plot. The characters however, are as bewitching as I expected and (again) Dalton's writing is beyond beautiful.

Molly Hook is seven years of age when the book opens. She's hearing the story of her grandfather Tom Berry. An embittered gold miner cursed by an Aboriginal man (Bob, in his Napoleonic coat) for stealing his gold (kinda). Molly's mother is about to leave her (unwillingly) and trying to prepare her daughter for a challenging future.

Molly we learn - other than her mother - loves two things. The sky and her shovel, Bert.

Dalton pulls us out of Molly's life briefly then. If we didn't already know about Molly's pilgrimage from the blurb, we may worry for her safety. As someone who forgets to read the blurb before they start a book, I fretted for young Molly. I found Dalton's ejection of we readers to Japan and into the life of Yukio Miki and his family to be too sudden. I skimmed pages of details about swords and honour.

Until we returned to Molly. It's now 1942 and Darwin's prepping for war. Dalton gives us a vivid picture of the place.

"The Darwin sunset is gold then red then purple then black. The town is corrugated-iron fortress homes that fall with a sneeze. Dirt for roads and dirt for air. Cyclone-ravaged for a century. Architectural impermanence. Darwin dreams in sungolds and earth-browns. It dreams in violent rain and wind." p 86

Molly's now twelve and her heart has been hardened. Her father and uncle (Horace and Aubrey) are drinking anything they can get and becoming increasingly violent. 

Molly's sure - of course - that Bob is to blame for her family's bad luck. She believes he will lift the curse and that it's up to her to find him and convince him.

Molly's partner on the journey (other than Bert, the shovel) is Greta and, for part of it, Yukio.

Although Dalton's writing is exquisite he lost me a little on occasions. Overly detailed descriptions of cliffs, caves, ravines and wildlife were lost on this nature-agnostic. I suspect I was also a little jaded by the incredibly bad luck Molly and Greta had in terms of those they encounter; and incredulous at the fact they continued to survive.

There's a strong sense of legacy here. Not just as it relates to the curse upon the 'kin' of Tom Berry, but the genesis of her family's hatred and anger. Molly's mother reflects on the bitter and vengeful tombstone of her own father.

"Promise me you will make your life graceful, Molly. Promise me you'll make your life grand and beautiful and poetic, and even if it's not poetic you'll write it so it is. You write it, Molly, you understand? Promise me your epitaph won't be ugly like this. And if someone else writes your epitaph, don't make them struggle to write your epitaph. You must live a life so full that your epitaph will write itself, you understand? Will you promise me that, Molly?" p 8

It has to be said, Molly is a delight. She has the honest guile of a child but the comprehension and wisdom of someone who's seen and experienced more than they should. She's sassy and brave, and though she has no reason to be, she's hopeful. I also liked Greta - more so as we learn her backstory.

Molly talks to the sky. It bestows upon her gifts. I suspect there's an obvious sky / heaven analogy there but Molly looks to 'the sky' for direction. Literally and metaphorically. 

'What if we're the treasure?' she asks. She looks back up at the sky. 'I'd try to hide us, too. That sky is the lid of a treasure chest. That sky is a blanket. Or a cloak....'

We are treasure buried by the sky,' Molly says. p 285

As a pragmatic logic-loving type of person I happily followed along on Molly's pilgrimage, despite it dipping in and out of realism. Dalton's writing, though dense and detailed in parts is simply stunning.

"And to the sky she makes a wish. She wishes to be water. Because water has no feeling. Water feels no pain. Water is never afraid. Water feels no sorrow. And she thinks about the life she could have had if she'd known how to move through this complex earth the way water always knows how to move through it." p 276

In many ways this is quite different to Dalton's debut novel - at least in terms of the narrative - but there are similarities. We're offered a child who's forced to face harsh realities before they should, who looks desperately to those around them for guidance, but ultimately recognises and understand their own gifts.

"No weights of gold to measure.
Only scales of truth and lies
For we are living treasure
Under all our shimmering skies." p 357

When I finished reading All Our Shimmering Skies I was left totally drained and had to sit back and contemplate what I had been reading. An intense story with a lot of depth.

I loved the location and the time period. On the 19th February 1942 the Japanese bombed Darwin and surrounding districts - this was something that nearly all Australians knew nothing about at the time - the impact on the city was immense but so it was for individuals. Having been to Darwin and the area south around the Litchfield area I could relate to the locations and descriptions. Incredible countryside - rugged, tough and dangerous while being magnificent, beautiful and totally magical.

This is an incredible journey into the heart of the back country of the Northern Territory but it is also a journey for the individuals facing dangers all around, both natural and human. It is a story of love and compassion, of relating to the earth and to the sky and exploring their meaning. With incredibly vivid and at time poetic descriptions, All Our Shimmering Skies fluctuates between mystical and down to earth.

Molly is a wonderful character as she too fluctuates between being down to earth and mystical. Her relationships with others are complex yet simple. Molly talks to the Sky and gladly accepts the gifts that come her way on her journey; one that is physical but also an inner journey to move beyond the abandonment and abuse she has suffered.

I found the story compelling and while the writing was at times overwhelmingly poetical it was also engaging.

Highly recommended read.


Thank you to Netgalley and publisher HarperCollins Australia for an ebook to read and review

Trent Dalton became Australian writing royalty after one book! I did not read that book (Boy Swallows Universe) but understood there would be immense pressure to maintain a certain level of success second time round. I have just closed the final page on his new release, All Our Shimmering Skies and have to say, I think he has done it. With nothing to compare it to, I am critiquing what is before me and quite frankly, it is immense .... it is another breathtaking odyssey.

‘You ever wonder why things are the way they are, Greta?’ she whispers. ‘What if this feller was supposed to be right here on this leaf in this very moment? What if he was put here to remind you and me about something.’ ‘Like what?’ Greta asks. ‘Like how pretty it all really is,’ Molly replies. ‘Who decided that gold would be worth so much, anyway? I’d take this feller over a gold pebble any day of the week.’

At face value this is the story of a young girl who is lost in its many variations. She digs graves with a shovel for a best friend. She talks to the sky. She runs aways from Darwin under assault from the Japanese and begins an epic journey deep into the Northern Territory in 1942 with Greta, a sassy actress and Yukio, a fallen Japanese pilot.

Yet .... this story is so much more .... so much more than that.

Trent Dalton is an amazing writer. Suspend all you know, all you understand of what writing should look like and immerse yourself in how writing can be. From Aussie humour and slang, to the horrifying and confronting details with the impact in the bombing of Darwin - he does it all, he blends it altogether in one amazing read. This book is atmospheric in its detail of Australia’s desert landscape and his writing is pure poetry for the soul. It is lyrical as passage after passage just oozes with life. It is heartfelt, it is rich, it is heartbreaking and it is, simply stunning.

‘It means we must face the truth of who we are, Uncle Aubrey,’ she says. ‘Everything you have ever done and everything you will ever do ... you must own it. Because you are those things. You carry those things with you.’

What the reader must do is put aside what you think you know about writing and what you think you know about Trent’s writing. Take this fantastical journey with Molly, the little gravedigger girl as she embarks on a life changing journey into the great unknown. Full of melodrama and magical realism I promise it will be memorable - you will smile, you will laugh, you will shed a tear and as my first Trent Dalton read, I can say my heart has been truly touched by his poetic prose.

‘Because sadness is the truest emotion,’ Greta says. ‘Happiness isn’t to be trusted. It’s a bald-faced liar. But the truth of your sadness enriches every other thing inside you,
especially your joy. You shouldn’t be afraid to go to the place that makes you sad, Molly Hook. The more you go to that dark place inside you, the lighter it gets. You go there enough
times, you realise that dark place is actually your sacred place. That place is all of you and the tears you take from that place are just the darkness leaking out, precious drop by precious drop. You following me?’





This review is based on a complimentary copy from the publisher in exchange for an honest review. The quoted material may have changed in the final release.

I have been putting this off because I just can't work out what to write about this beautiful book!
I think writing a second novel after the first was such a HUGE success was always going to be a very hard task. So much pressure and comparison. But Trent Dalton absolutely nails it.
I went in to it not knowing much at all about the story - and I think that is the best way to approach it = so I don't want to give anything away in this review, other than to say it is a glorious adventure set amongst some of the most stunning scenery in Australia.
I fell in love with Molly Hook in the first chapter and that just grew throughout the novel into a true obsession. She is easily now one of my most loved literary characters of all time. She has just the right amount of innocence and wisdom. If you don't love her - your heart must be made of stone.
There is a full cast of wonderful quirky heroes and villians and when I reached the end I wanted to go back and just start it all over again. I will definitely re-read when my hard copy arrives.
His writing is clever, thoughtful, funny, heartbreaking, and just stunning.
In case you can't tell, I absolutely LOVED this book and HIGHLY recommend that everyone reads it ASAP!